Hiring, firing, and rehiring can feel like an endless cycle. You go through all the trouble of collecting applications, interviewing candidates, and onboarding new employees, only for them to underperform or decide that the job isn’t for them after all.
This scenario is not uncommon: A survey of 1,000 employed U.S. workers by BambooHR found that a whopping 68 percent of them left a job within the first three months of being hired; 31 percent left within six months: overwhelming proof that the first three months of employment are critical for retaining new hires and saving time and money in the long run.
A crucial part of the first three months is the employee onboarding process, which begins when a candidate first accepts their job offer and continues to their integration with their team. An employee’s onboarding experience is a major influence in their decision to continue working with your organization. An effective employee onboarding process can help ensure that new hires feel ready for any challenges that come their way, whether these challenges are work-related or interpersonal. Most organizations offer an employee orientation, which has different benefits for new hires.
While you’ll likely want to personalize your employee onboarding to suit the needs of your industry and organization, becoming familiar with some best practices for onboarding new employees can help your organization with:
- Enhancing employee engagement and retention
- Establishing a positive and productive work environment for new hires
- Streamlining the onboarding process with effective, modern strategies
- Improving employee experience for current employees and potential new hires
So what’s an organization to do? Let’s get to know nine onboarding best practices that can help all organizations with onboarding new employees:
- Start before day one
- Assign a buddy
- Get the whole team involved
- Include cultural onboarding
- Focus on the big picture
- Define and measure success
- Get feedback
- Utilize different training methods
- Don’t stop onboarding yet
1. Start Before Day One
The first day at a new job is, more often than not, overwhelming. Your new hire has to remember where the restrooms are, where the lunchroom is, learn their coworkers’ names, figure out the company’s culture, and on top of that, they’re being inundated with all the processes they’ll have to learn. Starting the onboarding process at least a week ahead of time can give your new hire some breathing room and make them feel less overwhelmed on their first day.
Send new hires any training modules they can complete at home and FYI emails that can help them to prepare in advance, including:
- A list of paperwork they’ll need for the first day of work (i.e.: social security number, proof of address, certifications)
- A directory of their team, including pictures if possible
- A welcome from their direct manager
- A step-by-step rundown of their workplace’s location and where to report on their first day
- A quick primer on workflow or a small portfolio of projects to peruse so they can get to know the company
- Software or apps they’ll need to download or gain access to
By starting your onboarding process before day one, your new employee arrives confident and ready to get started.
Tip #1
To make sure you’ve thought of everything a new hire may need on their first day, ask someone in a similar role to walk you through a typical day for them—that way you can be sure you haven’t missed any items or logins.
By starting your onboarding process before day one, your new employee will arrive confident and ready to get started.
2. Assign a Buddy
Bill Watterson said, “Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.” And, when it comes to those nerve-wracking first days at a new job, a buddy is an invaluable onboarding tool.
A pilot onboarding program by Microsoft reported in the Harvard Business Review found that 56 percent of new hires who were assigned a buddy as part of the onboarding process indicated they were more productive because of the connection; that percentage went up to 97 percent when the number of interactions with the buddy was more than eight times over the first 90 days. Microsoft also found that 23 percent of new hires said their buddy increased their satisfaction with the overall onboarding process over new hires who weren’t assigned a buddy. In short: buddies work.
Tip #2
Consider assigning a teammate to be your new hire’s buddy rather than a senior or direct manager. This can help your new hire feel more comfortable asking questions about the office, culture, and their team members.
Assigning a buddy gives your new employee a safe space where they can ask questions while learning more about your organization’s workflow and culture. From a management standpoint, a buddy can also relay information about goals and progress to help structure onboarding activities on an individual level.
3. Get the whole team involved
Besides the hiring team, team members and other departments should also be involved in the process of onboarding a new employee—these are the people who’ll be showing them around and helping them get settled in, after all, and they will have a big impact on your new hire’s engagement. If the team onboarding is overlooked, a new employee can stir up reactions in your existing employees including confusion, indifference, or even contempt.
As such, it’s important that all parties have access to and transparency into the onboarding process. This includes clear communication from the team leader, even before your new hire’s first day. Keeping managers and team leaders included in the onboarding process helps to ensure that onboarding best practices are followed and can have a positive effect on engagement and employee retention.
Tip #3
Team leaders may have a lot on their plate already, so consider helping them with the onboarding process by automating parts of the process. For example, having reminders and prompts can help them to increase interactions with new hires, or if they’re lacking time, help them out with a message template they can easily personalize for the new hire.
Before a new hire starts with your organization, a quick, introductory email can go a long way. Let your team know a few basic facts about the new hire, but most importantly, outline their role. With your existing team already onboard, they’ll be better poised to support your efforts and make your new hire feel welcome and ready to succeed.
4. Include cultural onboarding
While an important part of new hire onboarding is training them on policy and protocol, the understanding and mastery of procedures doesn’t necessarily translate into employee satisfaction.
Introduce your new hire to the core values that inform your organization. What kinds of skills or values does a person need to succeed in your organization? These are important aspects of your organization’s overall culture for any new hire to think about, and over time, can help them to thrive.
Tip #4
Arrange a social event such as a team lunch or coffee for your new hire (or a group of new hires) to give them an introduction to your organization’s culture. This way, they can break the ice and get to know the company culture in a more informal setting.
It’s also important to have their onboarding buddy introduce them to your organization’s workplace culture—Friday games of lunchtime trivia, shared love of fantasy sports, the friendly rivalry between sales and accounting—stuff you won’t find in the new employee manual. Having their buddy model your company’s values and invite your new employee into your workplace traditions allows new hires to feel like part of the team from the start.
5. Focus on the big picture
One of the most valuable (and often forgotten) parts of new hire onboarding is understanding the company from 30,000 feet. No, that doesn’t mean taking your newest employee skydiving; it means helping all employees, no matter their position or department, understand how your organization operates from every angle.
It’s easy to get caught up in focusing only on a new hire’s specific duties. But, without a complete understanding of their role in the success of the company, those duties might seem less meaningful. A training module that connects each department or a workflow infographic helps new hires see and value their contributions.
By being transparent and open about your organization’s goals, new hires are able to gain a greater understanding of their own impact and how the goals for their role contribute to the growth of the organization as a whole. This will help them in making more informed decisions within the first few months in their role.
Tip #5
While it can be tempting to give your new hire all the information they’ll need right away, too much information can cause your new hire to feel overwhelmed. Try to:
- send only information that is immediately necessary
- spread the onboarding process out over a couple of weeks
- create training modules to break up the training process
Being organized and having a learning progression are best practices for onboarding new employees, and can help new hires successfully retain everything they’ve learned during the onboarding process.
6. Define and measure success
Imagine trying to put together a puzzle without knowing what it’s supposed to look like when you’re finished. You might be able to fit in a few pieces and even finish the puzzle—eventually. Without proper onboarding, new hires miss critical pieces of information in the first few months on the job.
While a new hire may have an understanding of the role and their responsibilities, outlining what your organization defines as success can help to create a clear path and instill confidence. Use your onboarding as an opportunity to help new employees understand exactly what’s expected of them via practical advice and specific and tangible results by:
- Using concrete examples from past experiences and employees
- Setting expectations for specific performance numbers, such as a successful month of sales
- Creating a scale for good, better, and best results. Use examples and emphasize expectations for the first six months using the scale. In month one, for example, your new hire might be on the “good” end of the scale, but you hope they’ll reach “best” by month three.
- Asking your new hire if they’re experiencing any barriers to success. If you set expectations, but your new hire doesn’t feel they have the necessary tools to reach them, they can become frustrated.
Tip #6
Use OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as a way to measure your new hire’s performance. Hold new employees accountable to these performance metrics, the same as you would for any employee.
With the right parameters clearly set from day one, your new hire knows exactly how to walk, run, and eventually sprint to success.
7. Get feedback
One of the best practices for onboarding new employees is so deceptively simple, it’s often ignored: asking for feedback. New hires are a fountain of wealth when it comes to measuring, tweaking, and executing the onboarding process. Schedule a few surveys to be delivered to your new hire’s email at regular intervals. Try using a rating scale as well as comments to get the full picture and let new hires feel heard.
Tip #7
Schedule a few surveys to be delivered to your new hire’s email at regular intervals. Try using a rating scale as well as comments to get the full picture and let new hires feel heard.
Gather feedback from the new hire’s team members and team leader as well, as they are also stakeholders in the onboarding process. Get to know how well the onboarding process allowed them to get to know their new teammate and how the onboarding process could have better supported their new teammate in their role. Be sure to collect feedback before, during, and after their experience.
8. Utilize different training methods
When it comes to employee onboarding, there is no one size fits all. While having your new hires read through your employee handbook or fill out surveys is an integral part of any onboarding process, truly engaging your new hire can take a little more than that. After all, you likely hired someone because of their unique characteristics, so why force each employee through the exact same training?
By incorporating gamification (a safe way to practice skills), multimedia, blended learning, and even tools like quick video and audio clips, your onboarding covers all the bases without feeling stagnant.
Tip #8
Get your new employee involved in personalizing their own onboarding process! Ask them questions about how they learn: do they prefer watching a video and reading on their own, or do they prefer a more interactive method? This way you can also gauge how much contact they’d prefer—your new hire may rather have a weekly catch-up than a daily check-in.
In your new hire training plan, aim to utilize different training methods that can be customized to each hire and their new position. By incorporating gamification (a safe way to practice skills), multimedia, blended learning, and even tools like quick video and audio clips, your onboarding covers all the bases without feeling stagnant.
9. Don’t stop onboarding yet
The purpose of employee onboarding is to build rapport, connect with your new hire, and welcome them into your organization. By that definition, onboarding should continue, even years into your employee’s tenure! An effective onboarding plan continues past the new hire’s probation period and ensures their continued engagement and employee satisfaction.
To begin with, plan for onboarding events to carry on through the 30-, 60-, and 90-day marks. By creating training that builds rather than dumps, new hires gradually become more confident. At the same time, managers know how to better set expectations and evaluate performance on a personal level. It’s a kinder, more effective way to train as you give new employees everything they need to succeed.
Tip #9
Designate a mentor for your new hire, preferably someone within your organization with more experience. This is different from a buddy, who ideally should be a teammate or someone working alongside them. A mentor can be a longer-term support for your employee and can help answer any questions they may have after their initial onboarding.
Measuring the effectiveness of your onboarding program
So you’ve applied all the employee onboarding best practices, and you want to measure how successful your program is. Besides gathering feedback, employee onboarding metrics can help to understand your new hire’s experience, how quickly they are onboarded, and what about their role and organization engages and excites them. Being able to measure these factors can help with continuously improving the employee onboarding experience.
Here are some metrics to measure the effectiveness of your onboarding program and help you identify areas where you can apply onboarding best practices:
Time to productivity
This metric tracks how quickly a new hire becomes productive and actively starts contributing to your organization. The quicker they are able to start contributing, the more it shows that your onboarding process has supported them in settling into their role. If you’ve already set OKRs or KPIs for your new hire, you can use these to measure their productivity.
Cost of reaching the optimum productivity level
An employee’s optimum productivity level (OPL) refers to the stage when they are at their most productive. The cost of OPL is the total cost incurred in helping them reach this stage, including ATS recruitment, training, salary, hardware and software, and more. Tracking this metric can help you identify areas of your onboarding process that could be further optimized.
Turnover rate for new hires
The “new hire turnover” onboarding metric calculates the number of new hires who have left their jobs within the first year. The turnover period can be shorter or longer than a year, depending on your organization’s definition. Considering that it can take close to a year for a new hire to reach optimum productivity, it’s definitely within your organization’s best interests to reduce new hire turnover rates. One of the main reasons for a high new hire turnover rate is a negative employee onboarding experience, which can impact your organization’s brand as well as team morale.
Employee onboarding satisfaction
Feedback is always an effective metric for measuring a new hire’s satisfaction with their onboarding process. Have them fill out a survey at the 30-, 60-, and 90-day mark to keep track of their sentiments within the first few months, up to a year from when they first join. Your questions can center around how well the onboarding prepared them for their job, how valued they feel, and how clear their goals are. Gather important feedback about what they feel could be improved about the onboarding experience and any challenges they’ve faced in their first few weeks. Get specific with questions about different initiatives in your onboarding process. Finish your survey by asking if there are any other tools or resources they need to perform their job better.
Try to keep the questions consistent for all new hires so you can accurately measure your organization’s onboarding success across a longer period of time. You can also measure how effective specific initiatives in your onboarding program are, and make adjustments accordingly.
360 degree feedback
360-degree feedback refers to feedback gathered from people with whom a new hire interacts: peers, managers, or anyone with experience and oversight of the new hire’s performance. From there, they can provide insight into what may be missing from your onboarding process. Collect this feedback regularly, and after a few months, you’ll be able to assess any challenges or obstacles affecting the new hire’s productivity or performance.
Tailoring the perfect approach for onboarding
Onboarding new employees is inherently tricky: you hired someone to fill a need you have now. Taking the time to get a new hire completely oriented might feel like a luxury you don’t have. But rushing through the process, using the same boring training, or skipping the onboarding period only sets you and your new employee up for failure. Instead, creating intentional, helpful, and clear onboarding training can help your employee feel empowered to succeed on day 1, day 100, and day 1,000.
A CareerBuilder survey found that, unfortunately, most companies don’t spend all that much time on onboarding: 25 percent of managers surveyed admitted their companies spent a day or less onboarding new hires; 26 percent gave a week; and 21 percent devoted a month to the process. Only 11 percent of companies surveyed said that onboarding lasts three or more months.
It’s sobering to see how a limited onboarding process leads to dissatisfaction in both managers and their new hires. Without the proper training, new employees don’t have the tools or knowledge they need to excel in their jobs, which is often seen as poor performance. Managers become frustrated, and it creates a never-ending cycle of new employees feeling (at best) stunted and (at worst) like they aren’t a good fit for the job or your organization.
By getting to know the best onboarding practices and metrics for measuring your onboarding program’s success, you have all the tools in hand to help your employees thrive.
